Dateline, India!: Harley Davidson to sell enormous double-black motorcycles in India! Maybe that will lessen the 95ish% decrease in sales in this country . . . Of course, this story comes with quotes that mangle the English language;

"“Our mission was to lay a strong base in India to help play a long innings. India is a vital part of company’s expansions plan which now is getting global,” Harley Davidson chief operating officer Matthew Levatich said."

China must be filled with suckers, or just really bad cars/China carries our economy in so many ways Department:

GM and Ford are starting to turn things around in this country, but in China they've been killing it! Killing what? I don't know, lemme get back to you . . Ford sales in China were up 111% last month, as they sold 21,127 vehicles in China for the month of August. After unloading 88,711 units in August, SAIC-GM's sales are up a whopping 122.6%. The articles come from China Car Times, and can be viewed here and here. I for one, welcome our Asian Over-Lords . . .

BMW wouldn't dare sell front drive cars under the nameplate 'BMW'. Good. I don't want them to. If you are just dying to own a front drive BMW, why don't you go buy a Mini. 'Cause that's what a Mini is, a front drive BMW.

Now that that's out of the way, BMW has confirmed it will expand the Mini line up with two new models, the 'Mini Coupe' and 'Mini Speedster'. I LOVE the Coupe; it's sultry and porportional in all the right ways. Not so hawt on that 'Speedster' deal though, it doesn't look right to my eye. I'm sure the production model will look much different when it is actually produced, I hope so anyway.

The Good: Porsche is introducing a new 911, the 'Sport Classic'. New Porsches are always appreciated, but the good news here is the new flappy-paddle transmission. The transmission itself isn't new, just the flappy-paddles. Prior to this model, a Porsche customer not possessing the wherewithal to specify a manual transmission had to settle for Pontiac Grand Prixesques thumb-shifter thingees. I've always thought this to be a rather moronic solution for gear-changing, just like the universal inter-automaker refusal to make auto-boxes with levers that move down for an up shift and up for a down shift. How many times has an auto-journalist bitched about that in the last ten years?

With the old Porsche system you were required to squeeze the sides of the steering wheel's spokes to effect gear changes. Completely counter-intuitive. Thankfully, the electronic connections are all the same for either system, so all Porsches with the bizarro shifters could theoretically be retro-fitted with flappy-paddles. Honestly, who are these goons that are buying Porsches with automatic transmissions to begin with?! Sigh, IDIOTS . ..

I dig auto-themed timelines. My attention span is short and my need for usueless facts is vast. Mostly so that I can regurgitate them during polite conversation; making me appear either extremely informed, or extremely obnoxious, take yer pick.Timelines make it easy for me to acquire a sensible amount of information without offending my ADD.

Auto-info ala carte comes to us from the New York Times today. Starting with four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, the timeline spans the last year of horrific auto-debauchery. Very informative, each month features a number of articles devoted to industry wide collapse, carnage, and failure.

Driver swapping is a common-place occurance in the Formula One world. All weekend we've heard rumors about Giancarlo Fisichella leaving Force India for Ferrair; taking over the seat left vacant by an injured Fillipe Masa. Will his career with Ferrari last beyond the last five races of this year? Probably not, but Fisichella is a native Roman, and a drive with Ferrari is every Italian-born driver's wildest dream. Who am I kidding? That's everyone's wildest dream click on the 'source' link for the full story.

We've been seeing teasers for the Ferrari 458 Italia all over the Internet lately. The video below was the first 'offcial' teaser for the 458, released a few weeks ago. Since then, Ferrari has commissioned several videos that reveal further details about the F430 replacement. More videos are available after the jump.

During a recent web-chat (one of the more useless uses for the internet- the 'webchat') the general manager of Buick-GMC, Susan Docherty, was put in front of the firing squad. She spent pages and pages of chat space answering questions with mostly negative answers. One avid Buick-phile asked if the G8 chassis would make for a decent GNX. "The G8 won't become the Buick Grand National." was the response. I could have told you that was what she was going to say, buddy.

Deciding that the engines they have purchased from supplier Navistar were more trouble than they are worth, Ford has designed and constructed their first pick-up truck diesel. The 'Scorpion' 6.7-liter V-8 diesel has many innovative features that contribute to lower emissions and NVH. Each set of valves has its own rocker configuration, the block is cast of a lighter iron, the cylinder heads are now aluminum. On top of those improvements, the motor has a unique turbo set-up.

Back in June the New York Times decided to compile a list of vehicles that are "Made in 'Murricuh". This list is surprising because of all the transmissions we get from France. I'm not kidding, even more than Canada, South Korea or Mexico; it seems France supplies not only our refined gasoline but also the crappy automatic that connects the German motor to the American rear-end in your Ford Explorer.